Old man winter was hollowing in a 40 mile per hour wind out of the north when the Data Detective was contacted by a QuickBooks Enterprise User who advised “every time she emailed a transaction from QuickBooks as soon as the email went-out, QuickBooks crashed.”
Now our old sleuth knows that there have been some reports of this in the past and that there can be a multitude of causes ranging from incompatible fonts, to damaged form templates, printer drivers, a damaged QBPrint.qbp file or PDF issues. In fact there are at least three different technical support articles on similar problems encompassing more than a dozen pages of potential repair steps.
Our Data Detective slipped into his favorite old Deerstalker cap and Inverness capecoat, grabbed up his Meerschaum pipe and spyglass, jumped in a coach, and arrived on the scene only delayed by a brief stop at the Bakers’ Cafe for his morning brioche and café au lait. I mean how is a Data Detective to do any sleuthing without morning sustenance, right?
Upon arrival he undertook to determine if the problem existed on a sole QuickBooks Enterprise 14 workstation, or if it was universal from workstation to workstation and user log-in to log-in. He also sought to determine if it was only one ‘type’ of form-template that resulted in the crash when emailed, or if all of the forms produced the same results. Knowing these facts provides valuable clues to the cause of the problem.
You see if the problem exists for all templates, the most likely causes are fonts, print drivers, PDF, QBPrint.qbp file, or a QuickBooks application error. On the other hand if the problem occurs with only one specific form-template a damaged template maybe the culprit. If the problem exists only on a single workstation, there very well could be a problem associated with either the QuickBooks application installation, or some issue with available fonts, on that computer.
Another quick test is to change the default printer associated with each workstation, especially if all the workstations share a common default printer. If this does not resolve the problem then there could be print driver related issues.
Unfortunately one common test associated with comparing the user’s own file, to a QuickBooks Sample file was not available in this case because you cannot send an email from a sample file, even if you configure email within that sample file. But in this case that test really wasn’t necessary because this user had QuickBooks Enterprise 12 installed on every computer, as well as QuickBooks Enterprise 14.
Our sleuth quickly learned that no such problem existed with QuickBooks Enterprise 12, it emails forms perfectly; in fact even a preserved copy of the same Company file being used in Enterprise 14 did not produce the same results in Enterprise 12. Obviously something could have happened to the Company file since being converted to Enterprise 14, but more likely something may have happened as a result of being converted to Enterprise 14, if the Company file is the culprit.
The Data Detective works through a variety of steps outlined in the various technical support articles, checking the fonts of the templates, editing templates, duplicating and recreating the templates, etc. He also took steps to resolve PDF, font, printer driver and QBPrint.qbp file issues. None of the deductive steps, or procedural testing, produces a satisfactory result.
Just when he thought that this mystery might go unsolved, he undertook one final step. Our sleuth created a new User account for the file. Upon logging in under the new user, there were no problems when emailing any template within QuickBooks 14. Logging back in under the original user, the problem returned, as it did for all other users, except the ‘new User’ account.
Tempted to create a new user account for each existing user, our old sleuth first determines to try one alternative. He simply creates a new password for each user’s current account. Low and behold, the emailing problem is solved; every user could now email any form template without QuickBooks Enterprise 14 crashing. While the Data Detective doesn't 'have a clue' as to why a simple password change would affect the ability to email forms from QuickBooks, he doesn't much care, his client is happy, and his mission is over....the case is solved, at least until the next time it appears hither or yon.
It was a surprise ending to an otherwise seemingly unsolvable case. So the next time you encounter a problem that seems out of the range of normal solutions, attempt a solution that is out of the range of normal as well. It might just be that you can mysteriously solve the unsolvable.
During the ride back to his flat, our Data Detective scribes in his casebook “despite all the sleuthing, procedural testing, and step-by-step deductive reasoning, sometimes a little luck makes solving the mystery seem, elementary My Dear Watson.” With such a long carriage ride ahead of him, surely another stop by the Baker’s Café would not be out of order, now would it?